Sounds of the Tenderloin
Photos from the Tenderloin Times Photograph Archive at the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library (L-R): “Zazu Pitts Memorial Orchestra performance at Boeddeker Park” Andrew Ritchie, 1985; “Janice Kind playing piano at Blue Lamp piano bar” Greg Gaar, 1986; “John Phillip Souza Memorial Band performance at Boedekker Park” Andrew Ritchie, 1986.
The legacy of live music runs deep in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, and the Tenderloin Museum’s “Sounds of the Tenderloin” program series animates the neighborhood’s undersung cultural history through live music.
As our community emerges from covid-19, “Sounds of the Tenderloin” aims to bring the Tenderloin community and San Francisco community together through live performances that explore, deepen, and complicate participants’ understanding of Tenderloin history while supporting local working musicians and creating accessible cultural activities for the neighborhood’s incredibly diverse and often low-income community.
Known as San Francisco’s historic nightlife district, the Tenderloin is where the city’s cultural underground surfaces in the work-a-day affairs of formal and informal performance spaces, from gilt theaters to intimate jazz clubs, (in)famous studios, and after-hours speakeasy venues. Famously, the Tenderloin’s Blackhawk Jazz Club hosted many of the city’s most iconic jam sessions and live recordings; independent, artist-oriented Wally Heider Studios fomented the groovy, synergistic “San Francisco Sound” of the ‘60s & ‘70s; the California Labor School hosted community folk music hootenannies to boost the visibility of organizing and educational efforts; the opulent Great American Music Hall--formerly Sally Rand’s Music Box--conjures a timeless grandeur that reveals the captivating and transformative potential of performance. Less famously, the Tenderloin has been and continues to be home to all stripes of working people, whose music has been a vital part of their everyday lives and identities, and whose musical practice courses through the TL’s singular tapestry of bars, hole in the walls, and street corners.
“Sounds of the Tenderloin” was initially made possible by a generous gift from Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, and TLM seeks to invoke the great festival’s spirit when creating accessible experiences that foster community connection in response to the long-lasting, isolating effects of the pandemic.
In 2023, TLM received a grant funded by the Specified General Fund for the Museum Grant Program under the California Cultural and Historical Endowment, to produce a second season of Sounds of the Tenderloin, with the majority of these grant funds going to local artists, organizers, and small businesses.
Stay tuned to this page for upcoming Sounds of the Tenderloin programs as well as an archive of past events from this series!
